Pennsylvania Supreme Court Clarifies Compensation for Lost Value as to Noncontiguous Parcels under Eminent Domain Code
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently held that noncontiguous properties could be valued as a single parcel whenever the properties are used together for the same purpose.
06.18.25
This clarified the law under section 705 of the Eminent Domain Code, which property owners and the Commonwealth had litigated over for several decades. The Supreme Court rejected PennDOT’s assertion that noncontiguous parcels must be “so inseparably connected that the loss of one would necessarily and permanently injure the other,” and instead held property owners only to the lesser burden of showing that the two properties are used “together” and for the same “unified purpose.” Klehr Harrison senior partner Carl Primavera served as an expert witness for the Pignettis with respect to zoning issues before the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.”
In 2019, PennDOT condemned a portion of one property and another parcel in Philadelphia near I-95. Mr. and Mrs. Pignetti owned one of the parcels jointly, and Mr. Pignetti owned the other parcel individually, but they were separated by an “unoccupied and unused sliver of land no more than several square feet in area.” The Pignettis petitioned the trial court for a board of viewers to determine just compensation for PennDOT’s taking. PennDOT filed preliminary objections, and, after stipulating to certain facts, argued that the parcels were noncontiguous and not used together for a unified purpose as required by the Code. At an evidentiary hearing, the trial court heard testimony from Mr. Pignetti that he had “always used the [parcels] for [his] electrical business to store vehicles, equipment, materials, et cetera.” His testimony, therefore, established that he used the two properties for the same purpose, but not that they were “so inseparably connected that the loss of one would necessarily and permanently injure the other.” The trial court determined that the parcels met the test set forth in the Code to be valued together, but the Commonwealth Court reversed.
The Supreme Court was presented squarely with the question of what the Eminent Domain Code required of property owners to be able to seek compensation for damage to a parcel from the taking of another, noncontiguous parcel. Section 705 of the Code, 26 Pa. C.S. § 705, originally was enacted in 1964 and allows property owners to rely on so-called “plottage valuation” where “a part of several noncontiguous tracts in substantially identical ownership which are used together for a unified purpose” is taken. Under caselaw predating Section 705, property owners could resort to plottage valuation only where the noncontiguous properties were “so inseparably connected that the loss of one would necessarily and permanently injure the other.” Morris v. Commonwealth, 367 Pa. 410, 80 A.2d 762 (1951). A comment from the Joint State Government Commission that drafted the Code indicated that Section 705 “codifies existing case law,” including Morris, but the plain text of Section 705 suggested that plottage valuation should be more readily available to property owners.
In an opinion by Justice Wecht, the Supreme Court held that Section 705 meant what it said, and that Morris was unduly restrictive. Section 705 was unambiguous, so the Court held it had no authority to read ambiguity into an unambiguous statute. Importantly, the Court also held that, even if the statute was ambiguous, the statute’s remedial purpose—vindicating the constitutional property rights of private property owners—required any ambiguous language to be construed strictly against the government (here, PennDOT). The Court therefore found it was bound to allow property owners to seek plottage valuation as far as reasonably possible.
Therefore, under the Court’s decision, the Pignettis could measure the compensation due to them according to the impact of the condemnation to all of their parcels taken together. The Court, noting that these cases are very fact-sensitive, remanded the decision for further valuation proceedings. That fact sensitivity will leave room for the government to dispute the application of section 705 in particular cases, but, going forward, owners of condemned property can expect boards of view and trial courts to follow the rule in Pignetti and assess the impact of the condemnation of noncontiguous parcels holistically, provided the parcels are under common (if not necessarily exactly identical) ownership and are used for the same purpose. Consistent application of the Pignetti rule should more consistently afford property owners subject to condemnation proceedings a more complete recovery of the value of their affected property.
Co-authors Glenn Weiner, partner, and Michael Paul Bannon, associate, are members of the Litigation Department at Klehr Harrison.